Daily News Dose: Assembly poll results to have bearing on President's election | Mar 8, 2022

Hello listener, this is your daily dose of news from Onmanorama. I'm your host, Gopika KP. These are the major news stories of the day

1. Varkala fire: Prompt alert by neighbours could save only one; upstairs gutted completely
2. Kerala HC rejects Dileep's plea against further probe into actor attack case
3. Second Russian general killed in war, says Ukraine
4. No plan to leave UDF, will strengthen it, says new IUML Kerala chief Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal
5. Assembly poll results to have bearing on President's election due later this year

Let’s get into the details.

1) It was neighbour K Shashankan who first spotted the fire that consumed the lives of five members of a family, including an infant in Varkala in the wee hours of Tuesday. Five members of a family were charred to death in a fire at Rahul Nivas  in Dalavapuram near Cherunniyoor Block Office, Varkala at around 1.45 am.
The deceased are Prathapan, 62, wife Sherly, 53, daughter-in-law Abhirami, 25, her eight-month-old son Riyan and Prathapan's younger son Ahil, 29. Prathapan's second son Nihul, who suffered serious burn injuries, has been admitted to a private hospital. Nihul has been put on ventilator support as his condition is critical.

2) The Kerala High Court today rejected Malayalam actor Dileep's petition to cancel the reinvestigation of the 2017 case on sexual assault of a female actor. The Kerala HC has permitted the probe team to continue their investigation in the case. The single bench of the court has also instructed the probe team to complete the investigation by March 15. The actor-survivor, who has worked in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films, was abducted and allegedly molested in her car for two hours by some persons who had forced their way into the vehicle on the night of February 17, 2017 and later escaped in a busy area. The entire act was filmed by those persons to blackmail the actor. There are 10 accused in the 2017 case and police have arrested seven. Dileep was arrested subsequently and released on bail.

3) Ukraine's military intelligence said on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces have killed a Russian general near the besieged city of Kharkiv, the second Russian senior commander to die in the invasion. Major General Vitaly Gerasimov, first deputy commander of Russia's 41st army, was killed on Monday, the Chief Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine's defence ministry said in a statement.
Another Russian general, Andrei Sukhovetsky, also a deputy commander of the 41st army, was reported killed at the end of February. Ukraine says its forces have killed more than 11,000 Russian troops. Russia has confirmed about 500 losses. Neither side has disclosed Ukrainian casualties.

4) In keeping with the tradition of choosing a Panakkad family member as the head of the Kerala unit of the Muslim League, Panakkad Sayyid Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, the brother of Panakkad Syed Hyder Ali Shihab Thangal who died on March 6, was unanimously chosen on Monday as the Indian Union Muslim League chairperson.
IUML was formed in 1948 – a year after Indian Independence – and for the first time, the party will be led in the state by a person born after that event. In other words, a generational change has taken place in the party.

5) The results of assembly polls this week will not only decide who the next chief minister will be in the five states but will also have a bearing on the election of the President of India expected later this year. The term of President Ram Nath Kovind ends on July 24, and the outcome of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa on March 10 will decide which party or alliance will have a decisive say in the presidential election.

Now, let’s check out the covid update

6) India logged 3,993 new coronavirus infections, the lowest in 662 days, taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 4,29,71,308, while the active cases dipped to 49,948, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday. The death toll climbed to 5,15,210 with 108 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8am stated.

That brings us to the end of this episode! Be sure to come back tomorrow. As always, thanks for listening to Daily News Dose.